Who by family

Silicon Valley Moms Group Book Club: "Who by Fire" by Diana Spechler

Today, I am participating in the Silicon Valley Moms Group book club.  For today’s club, we read “Who by Fire,” a novel by Diana Spechler.  It doesn’t do the novel justice to summarize it briefly, but, mainly, it’s a book about sibling relationships.  The back cover describes the story as “what happens when people try to rescue one another.”  This post is not a book review; rather, I will sharing my thoughts on that family rescue issue as presented in the story.  First, though, I offer a note on my own reading habits: Often, I read fiction to escape from my real life, and my usual mental vacation involves mystery stories.  Depending on my mood, I pick light mysteries (culinary tales by Joanne Fluke or Diane Mott Davidson) or denser mysteries (like Jane Haddam’s Gregor Demarkian series).  There’s a reason that I don’t like “family issue” novels.  For one, let’s face it – there is no family without its own issues.  I don’t need to read about others’!  As well, I often find the characters extremely messed up and unlikable.  Bluntly, I found this to be the case with “Who by Fire.”  I was rooting for none of the main characters in the book; in fact, I actually strongly disliked the brother-sister pair (Ash and Bits) on whom the story centers.  All that said, the reason that this book made such a strong impression on me is that, throughout the story, I found myself asking the question: for whom would I go to the ends of the earth?   To a mother, the answer to that question is simple: my kids.  In my case, I would also go to the ends of the earth for my husband, my partner since I was 16 years old.  But who else?  My siblings?  My parents?  My grandparents?  What about aunts, uncles, cousins?  Friends?  Beyond that, who constitutes my family, anyway?

The whole concept that we “owe” our “blood kin” a commitment exceeding what we owe to others close to us is one that is difficult for me to grasp – perhaps because I was fortunate to be raised by a loving stepfather who is not my “blood kin” at all, but who is unquestionably as much “family” to me as my own mother.  Conversely, though, because a family member is “blood kin,” do we owe that person a specialy loyalty if they’re someone whose actions we don’t really like – who wouldn’t really be our friend?  In the book, the sibling pair Ash and Bits don’t like each other much and don’t approve of each other’s lifestyles, yet Bits – at her mother’s command – sets off to Israel to try to bring Ash home.  I felt like I was missing something there.  I know that I love much of my immediate family enough to want to help should they ever need it – but if my brother decided that he needed to go halfway around the world and become a different person, would I follow him and drag him back just because my mom wanted me to fetch him?  That’s not rescue, not to me – that’s invalidation, coercion, emotional abuse, or something like it.  I am not my brother’s keeper, though I would always extend a hand if he needed it (but only if he wanted it) – just like he has always extended one to me, flawed as I am.  At the end of the day, I think that our family is made up of those who believe in us as we are, who accept us as we are – not those who we need to change or to rescue no matter what the circumstance.  I don’t know many families who work like that, though – and perhaps that’s why books like “Who by Fire” are so popular in the end.

End note: Other “family issue” books that I’ve read recently and, to some extent, enjoyed are “The Corrections” by Jonathan Franzen and “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” by David Sedaris.